blog – phlwest

11 April 2025

Life As Art - Night Echoes - Out Now

All these countless nights spent alone, making music; producing, writing, mixing, listening, testing – under night skies, with visions of something greater in mind, something more beautiful.

I do not want to be alone, anymore.

I want to take you with me, take you through my work, take you through my process.

This is Life As Art.

This first video has been in the making for a long while – I needed to figure out how I could best translate what I had in mind into video. I am proud of what I came up with – this first one takes you through my process of working on a demo, listening to it around the city, making ‘Heaven Hell’ and perfecting it in my studio.

This format will be anything, BTS of my work, my art, my life, song releases, deep dives, anything I want it to be.

I’m forever grateful to you who watch and who want to get to know more lore of these songs, which I will be talking about in depth.

I hope this series can be a visual expansion of the blog, a way for me to connect with you and a way for me to show off the work that I put into my art. There’ll be exclusive songs, previews, some leaks. I want to push this series with everything I have, hopefully you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed making it.

I’ve got so much on my mind and I am grateful to have found this way of sharing it with you, visually.

Love, forever,

phl.

26 February 2025

Together Magazine Edition 02 is out right now

I’ve been working long and hard at creating another Edition of Together Magazine, after the first one was such a success. In this Edition you’ll find:

Live Performances of Rented and Us
Exclusive and Uncensored Images
Over 1 Hour of Audio Interviews
Exclusive Images and Polaroids
Behind The Scenes Look into the way I work
In-Depth Deep Dive into my Songwriting Process
Access to Private Instagram Story for more Behind the Scenes Content

And so much more.

Been gathering pieces of love left on the cutting room floor, curating, pushing and pulling for all that love to make it to daylight. There is lots and lots of work left out of a final project – WE ARE LOVE – in this case.

Work that is neither bad nor undeserving, simply not fitting in the final album. It was important to me to rework those pieces into something digestible, something that makes sense, something that shows the endless amounts of care that is put into every piece of art I create. I found Together Magazine to be the perfect place for all of that.

Poetry that evolved into lyrics, poetry that made its way into the album, poetry that exists because it deserves to.

My art doesn’t exist in a vacuum, real life evolves into music and this magazine is created from real life as well.

The late night conversations that end up as lyrics months later. The technical studio setups that somehow feel romantic when it’s just me and the music. It’s all the stuff around the album that made the album possible. It’s also documentation, conversation, making all of that something worth looking at.

It would mean the world to me if you checked it out, purchased it if you can and shared it with somebody you love. I put a lot of work into all of this, including the exclusive live performances, photoshoots I did specifically for that magazine and all the audios I created to let you closer into my world.

Love you endless, phlwest.

11 February 2025

We Are Love, my new album is out right now on all platforms. Listen anywhere.

Together We Are Love – the second part to remind us both that yes,
Together We Are Love is drenched in light now.
Can you see the light?
Can you feel the love?

We’re moving through TOGETHER into the light of
WE ARE LOVE.
Do you hear it all?

After 7 long and dark months of work in this silver studio – words reflected in mirror finishes, sounds bouncing off walls – these 7 all new songs are out right now. I’ve been pouring everything I got into it, love, life, sex. Creating these tracks from scratch – ideas first captured on my phone. I sat down at the piano a lot during the beginning stages to create melodies and chord progressions that capture feeling, change, honesty without anything other than these two most crucial and most basic sonics taking spotlight – I want songs that can stand on their own when played at the piano.

Later during production everything came together more beautiful, more peaceful than I had hoped for. Recording vocals took its time, as always, but I am proud of what I came up with.

06 - RENTED

Rented as the lead single still feels right – it’s one of my favorite pieces of music I’ve ever made – although I can usually only tell months and months after release which song sticks with me for good. There’s shards of every other album track in Rented, its a sort of capsule of the EP in ways, it touches the melancholy of lost love while celebrating the freedom and universality of shared time.

My favorite lyric must be the hook:

SELL ALL THE SHIT THAT I GOT
LET THESE DIAMONDS BLIND SOMEBODY ELSE

Filming the music video early this year was a blast – it came out stunning.

01 - GANG

Gang as a second favorite off the album. I knew this was the opener as soon as I wrote it – the tracklisting kinda came together by itself – I spend lots of time writing lyrics and figuring out what I wanna say in each song, so the ideas are set from the start. I’m trying to tell a story within these 7 lyric-driven songs – I finished the words before anything else. Still, melody is most important. That means tracklisting is basically done right at the start. Each song brings its own surprises but the process follows the initial storyline.

Love, Life ain’t fair, we could gang up on ’em gang – fight this life as two. Coming from together the perfect intro to We Are Love, continuing the spirit and turning toward the sun.

02 - KICK IT

These drugs, your love through my veins render me non verbal, let’s kick it, let’s kick it together. Blinded and star gazing, head off roofs, they can see us as anything and if they dare see us as less than, I know we still got each other.

Cause DNA talk no lies, this shit is inside, our love for each other, we don’t let us be dictated by others.

This one relies on production heavily, took ages to finally get the chorus to hit like I wanted it to. In the end I’m glad its song number two, here’s a scrapped verse:

we no more than doll doll
good with me me
good with you
no more than doll doll

03 - THICKER

The line ‘Slutty little waist and the rest all thick / You look good bouncing on that dick’.

Now fr this song horny as hell but lemme be clear it got some deeper meaning to it too. With that bloodline and our love that’s thicker than blood i’m talking family, chosen family and what we can create together. I’ve seen so many definitions of chosen family and love over the years, don’t let anybody tell you it’s less than. This love is thicker than blood. Fuck your bloodline if they ain’t with you.

Fuck their view on us if they ain’t with you. We need to continue living as we do, acknowledging history, cause if I look around the world today I can see what happens if we forget history, if we forget where we come from. Our community been through a lot, let’s make love for everybody who can’t love anymore or doesn’t get the chance to.

04 - HEAVEN HELL

No matter what this is with you, no matter what we’ll call it after tonight, I want it. I know I can’t place it cause I don’t know a red flag from good, but with you I feel good no matter what we do. No matter where we are.

This as a continuation of Thicker, now the morning after – how to look into the future with you? Is what we’re doing good, are we made for more than one night?

Ain’t a fan of any obsolete ideas of togetherness, you and me, we can be anything we want to be, and whatever this is, if this is hell I want it with you, if this is heaven I want it with you. And besides, they been talking about us burning forever anyway, so at least let’s make it beautiful and burn together, put some glitter on, and burn together.

05 - NIGHTS

Another one of my favorites. This feels like a phlwest pop song, something close to a pop song anyway.

NA THESE AIN’T WASTED NIGHTS / THIS THE TIME OF OUR LIFE /
AND SINCE I’M WITH YOU / I’VE LIVED A FULL LIFE

Pounding bass and a kick heard through a rattling bathroom wall with a hole in it, for pleasure. I wrote those lines while watching three guys stumble out of the neighbouring stall. These ain’t wasted nights, this the time of our life, and since I’m with you, I’ve lived a full life. I was with somebody I met two hours ago in the line to the club, eyes wide, second berlin night, looking inward. Sometimes there is not much talking involved, and there wasn’t any needed. We collided on the dancefloor and our skin stuck for the rest of the night.

07 - US

WHEN YOU THINK OF GOD
DO YOU
DO YOU THINK OF US
THINK OF US
CAUSE I
WHEN I THINK OF GOD I
THINK OF YOU

I do not believe in god, but I do believe in us.

This is all me, this is all me in sound, in lyric, in production, in imagery, in visuals, in mastering and mixing. It took a lot, so I hope you will give it a chance. Listen alone or with a loved one, share with a hookup or your partner. Tell me what you’re dreaming of, I hope you get to live a little life to these songs. I hope you will find parts of yourself in this music and these lyrics. I hope these songs will be part of your soundtrack to 2025 and I hope you get to share life to them – with a loved one or with a beautiful stranger. I‘ve spent months perfecting this, now I need your help in sharing and listening.

Together We Are Love.

27 January 2025

Rented Music Video Out Now!

21 January 2025

RENTED OUT NOW

Fuck man, Rented, the first song off of my upcoming project ‘We Are Love’ is out now. Six months of hard work, inspired by lost, innocent love come together on this track. I promise y’all gon’ enjoy this one as much as I enjoyed working on it, it’s special for real. The best music I’ve made, ever.

Being able to give you a first glimpse into a project is unique, and I know Rented is the perfect start to this era. A song about change, about the melancholy of memory and the ease of youthful love. It touches the themes of the album in its own, beautiful way, while sounding distinct to the rest of the album. Definitely the most energetic of all of ’em, and I am happy to start with a clubby 4 to the fucking floor track. That’s where I come from. I want you making out with your crush raw, passionate, intimate.

As an independent artist doing all of this shit by my lonely, I had to re-learn that things take much longer than expected – writing, recording and mixing: finishing this album took the better part of 7 months. This evolution of Together, my last album, along with the singles that came in between, feels like the perfect end to an era of finding out who I am musically. I know, now.

I had to adjust, overcome: problems along the way, deal with delays that happen because of myself, nobody else to blame. That’s a tough spot to be in at times, I’ve made it through however, and I am forever grateful to myself for all that that. I kept pushing, dedication key, consistency key.

I spent last summer writing, lost in memory, the island and its laid back life aided in crafting the perfect lyric. Some time to think, some time to reflect, some time to space out, rethink and fuck- since my music is based on memory and melancholy: these times as essential. I watched leaves fall from my studio, recording, producing, crafting these sonic scapes, and winter was entirely spent perfecting these songs. Mixing, mastering, lost in details. Exploring different corners of these songs that I’ve been spending so much time with already and always discovering something new, something to perfect, something to change and adapt and push. Push to be adored. Push to be loved.

Rented Lyric Video

We returned to the island at the beginning of this year to shoot a music video for Rented which will be out in a couple of days on the 23rd. I am sooo fucking thrilled about it, it’s the best music video I’ve ever made. Just me, my man filming and the idea to create something beautfiul. We made that happen, you’ll see soon.

Rented as everything that I’ve been trying to achieve up to this point, I’ve never been more proud of something.

It would mean the world if you listen and share, be generous with your time and this track. I’ve spent an incredible amount of hours on this, I feel like it deserves some of yours. If you want to create content with it I would love to see it.

Save it to your liked songs on whatever platform you listen, put it into a playlist, share it with your loved ones, your hookups or your dates.

Thank you, I love you endless.

Much much more to come real real soon,

phlwest.